TomD_Arch Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 I am starting to get a little annoyed with the endless need for plugins. Seems like every time I go to watch a tutorial or ready a "How-to" there is some (x) number of plugins being used. It's starting to sound like one of those old apple commercials. "How did I do that? Oh, there's a plugin for that." Anyone else finding themselves wondering how they are going to convince their boss to make another software purchase when you can't even get V-Ray for 3ds Max? Q: What's your list of essential plugins? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris MacDonald Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 I hear ya! I totally agree too, though that said the only problem with expecting it all from one piece of software is that it becomes a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none. I'm glad that some companies are so invested in their little niche that it simply becomes the cream of the crop. I'm looking at you, itoosoftware and Chaosgroup! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Schroeder Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Agreed. I totally hate making my life easier by eliminating repetitive tasks that take up most of my production time. Plug-ins schmug-ins, right comrades? Here's to a 20 hour day doing things by hand! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomD_Arch Posted January 20, 2015 Author Share Posted January 20, 2015 Agreed. I totally hate making my life easier by eliminating repetitive tasks that take up most of my production time. Plug-ins schmug-ins, right comrades? Here's to a 20 hour day doing things by hand! Easy to say when you have that money tree in your backyard and can just go pick more cash. But, you also didn't list your favorites. So I think you misunderstood. I'm not complaining about the existence of plugins, only the heaps of cash we have to dole out if want to have all the toys in the chest. So I'm asking what are peoples favorites and/or most useful, to get an idea of what to invest in down the road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jensandersen Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Take out some minuttes of your day and think on how to present your plugin request to your boss. If you could show a rough estimate on how much time saved pr. project / fewer mistakes made / higher quality delivery, I'm sure he/she would gladly go fetch some cash from the money tree out back - if you can't convince the boss in that way, the plugin probably won't help you as much as you thought OR the boss is a terrible businessman... There are loads of threads regarding plugins around, but a good (and free) "must-have" is the pack by Neil Blevins: http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_tools/soulburnscripts/soulburnscripts.htm Best of luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corey Beaulieu Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 I'm not sure there is a real need for so many plugins... I know everyone works differently so I understand that there may be other opinions on that, but in the past 4 years I can say that only 3 Plugins and a handful of scripts have proved to be useful in any real way. Vray (as mentioned) itoo, Forest Pack Pro (as mentioned) Guruware Ivy generator Scripts are easy to get for free or write, but the few I use regularly are: Floor Generator DG Wirecolour Script a custom one for cleaning up the various imports from Revit, Sketchup, and Rhino and then the occasional one-off like a bookshelf generator I used recently The Neil Blevins stuff is cool, but again those are free. What is the vast assortment that you are considering? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomD_Arch Posted January 21, 2015 Author Share Posted January 21, 2015 What is the vast assortment that you are considering? Just as an example, today I was looking to experiment with saving out my render elements as .exr. Need a plugin for that. I was watching a tutorial on color correction at lunch today, no audio, all of a sudden this window pops up and it's some plugin adjusting color settings and curves, and no it wasn't magic bullet. What about Render Optimizer? That's a nice freebie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasonstewart Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 The paid ones I have are: Vray Forrest Pack (wish I would have bought the bundle with RailClone now) GrowFx /list If you can save 1 man hour per project by buying a plugin it will pay for itself in a few projects. Vray is obviously a harder pill to swallow, more now that they are charging for nodes. With that comes great support, great quality renders, the biggest user group who have shared settings/materials/etc. Its hard to find quality MR tutorials, I have vray tutorials coming out of my ears (almost in a bad way). I do use a few free ones, mostly just FloorGenerator. I am thinking about getting that new spline one for Max to draw lines known lengths...That would be awesome. Part of the problem IMO is that AutoDesk does not add the features people have been asking for for years. Why cant I draw a spline that is 10 feet up then 8 feet right then 4 feet down? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corey Beaulieu Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Thomas, The Color Correction one you are talking about better be called Photoshop or GIMP otherwise who truly needs it. The Max one gets a lot of flack, but I find that in advanced mode it works just fine as well. The EXR thing is a bit tougher. Maybe I have one and never knew it or maybe that's just native to VRay (which I would imagine to be more likely as they support Deep EXR at this point) Optimizers become obsolete with experience and I have to believe that the need to draw lines at specific lengths is easy enough with rectangles and an edit poly modifier, the move by local coordinates command, or even just placing a few helper/reference objects. I an't imagine that is done enough on a daily basis to warrant any major purchase. I think (I as in just my opinion) we are looking at Vray if that is a limitation that you feel. It certainly can speed up render times if you get knowledgeable with it. And a Multi-scatter type plug-in if you do any sort of vegetation in 3D. Many use 2D though. I believe your money better spent on object libraries beyond these 2 and the Guruware one I mentioned is free (http://www.guruware.at/main/). I should say though, that my assumption here is for arch-viz? If you do other work primarily I may be way off base with your day-to-day workflow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siddharthkolte Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 My list of plugins are, 1. Vray - Obviously 2. Custom Script - MultiFBX importer with material converter (Revit to 3dsmax Workflow) - Creates different layers for each file - Two click solution. 3. Custom Script - Timeliner - Animating Construction Sequence as per dates provided through Primavera Software. 4. Custom Script - One click Lighting solution for HDRI and Sun Combination 5. Avis Studio Tools - ATiles - For those sloping roof designs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amen Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 The most important: 1. V-Ray 2. Forest Pack Pro 3. Nested Layer Manager (because of Max 2015, it is a very good) 4. Project Manager (Assets and Relinking) 5. ATiles Wishlist: Laubwerk Trees Railclone Arion FX for Photoshop Marvelous Designer + time to learn mighty Tiles is just to expensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sketchrender Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 3. Custom Script - Timeliner - Animating Construction Sequence as per dates provided through Primavera Software. can I have a link for this script please. Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siddharthkolte Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 3. Custom Script - Timeliner - Animating Construction Sequence as per dates provided through Primavera Software. can I have a link for this script please. Thank you Hi Philip, I have created this script myself and is not yet completed its like a work in progress but I can show you like a screen shot of what it has at the moment. http://imgur.com/FlmbZXd I am still working on a way to import Excel files directly into 3dsmax and animating it according to the layers. But may take sometime for me to implement this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomD_Arch Posted January 21, 2015 Author Share Posted January 21, 2015 TopazLabs- the 'DeNoise' effect was the plugin I saw being used yesterday in the tutorial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notamondayfan Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 I think the ease at which you can create scripts makes Max a brilliant piece of software. I wish Photoshop had something like that! Only a handful of script are a bit pricey, but many are free or cheap. Vray, Forest Pro are my 2 main paid plugins. Scripts? Probably about 20 I use on a daily basis. Also look at scripts which in the past were paid scripts, but Autodesk have bought and integrated into Max. The graphite ribbon used to be a paid script (I can't remember it's original name) before AD added in to Max 2012 if I remember correctly? So who here regrets buying Vray, and is thinking I could save some £££ with Mental Ray?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Schroeder Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Photoshop does have relatively easy scripting with action scrips and even easier with recording actions. I have to hit 2 buttons in PS and my entire comp is already set up for me. Heck if you don't have CC, the CanLinkIt script, with allows you to essentially have "live" links in Photoshop now, is pretty awesome considering it's free. Tools like Rail Clone and Forest are invaluable considering they are relatively cheap. What used to take a week's worth of work to set up landscape on a master plan site can now be done in a few hours. A week's worth of production costs versus ~$280? Any manager in half their right mind would see the benefit in investing in a tool like that. It's not about who has a money tree, it's about being smart in your production. Paid scripts like the ones from miauu are also incredible time savers and they are all under ~$30 for his packs and ~$12 per individual script, most are even less than that. I get Vray can be a tough sell given you've already paid for Max and that comes with Mental Delay. Even though Vray has a metric asston of tools and props for it, it's still could be tough to sell. If you still have a boss who is reluctant, just pull an Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption and write him one email a week until he coughs up the cash. After he does that, write him 2 emails a week until you get Vray. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryhirsch Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Shawshank Redemption....a great movie..and if that doesnt work you could imitate Raymond from Rain Man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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